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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27517915">Pansy</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeeLiz_98/pseuds/GeeLiz_98'>GeeLiz_98</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>SHINee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Extended Metaphors, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Poetic, Religious Conflict, Religious Imagery &amp; Symbolism</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-08 05:00:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,447</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27517915</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeeLiz_98/pseuds/GeeLiz_98</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"I killed him." </p><p> </p><p>"Killed WHO Taemin-ah?" </p><p> </p><p>"Me." </p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kim Jongin | Kai/Lee Taemin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Pansy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>YouTube was down. </p><p>This is word vomit. I'm not tagging it properly because it's experimental drivel. </p><p>It's based on Taemin's recent comeback which is sort of obvious. The execution was a challenge...but it's only a bit of fun.</p><p>If you, by chance, are here then I'd be GENUINELY interested to know what you think it's about...which sounds ridiculous...you'll see.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.</p><p> </p><p>Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It is one month since my last confession."</p><p> </p><p>"Can you tell me a bit about yourself, Taemin?" The priest said in hushed tones.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>"I...don't know…" </p><p> </p><p>The laughter that erupted from deep inside of him was vicious, venomous, dark. </p><p> </p><p>"I don't know anything about him. About me. I don't know a thing."</p><p> </p><p>His grin was sinful. Wicked. </p><p> </p><p>"Would you care to tell me, before the Lord our Father, how you have sinned?"</p><p> </p><p>He didn't feel as though he had sinned at all. </p><p> </p><p>"I killed him." </p><p> </p><p>He grinned so widely he felt as though his cheeks would split.</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>Life was never outwardly burdensome for Taemin growing up. </p><p> </p><p>Never having a luxurious life, his family always middled. They lived in the middle of suburbia, neither wealthy nor poor, never having the finer things in life but never wanting for anything much. He averaged in school, never causing a fuss, never standing out. </p><p> </p><p>There was one thing his mother had always taught him as a young boy that had stuck with him.</p><p> </p><p>"The nail that sticks out will get hammered down." </p><p> </p><p>It never quite made sense to Taemin. Why should he force himself to be lesser than he was so as not to trouble anyone else by towering over them? </p><p> </p><p>In his mind he was lofty. In his imagination he was the tallest nail of all. </p><p> </p><p>He was a flower. A flower growing leagues above all of the others, inching ever closer to the sun and as he went, he basked in the Light while leaving everyone else in his shadow. He blossomed. </p><p> </p><p>His mother could never know. His mother could never know about the colours that resided inside of him. She could never discover the mountains in his mind, the worlds he had built as his refuge from a world that couldn't accept him. A world that cut down flowers. </p><p> </p><p>He was a pansy. </p><p> </p><p>The pansy is the most colourful, vibrant flower of them all. Not only do they have the most beautiful pigment, they mix colours into captivating kaleidoscopic patterns. The patterns form a sort of mirage, a visage, each one possessing an identity of its own. </p><p> </p><p>There were times as a child when Taemin spoke to the pansies. They weren't like the people in his life who lived out their days in monochrome. Monotony. The flowers were beauty, they were life. </p><p> </p><p>Pansies endure. They thrive in the dark and in the light. They survive annums, persisting through the seasons when other flowers wilt and wither. </p><p> </p><p>If you cut a pansy down, it will rise once again</p><p> </p><p>The boys at school called him a pansy. </p><p> </p><p>The naivety of a child often acts as a shield. The perceptive nature of a child can often cut through to the core of another. </p><p> </p><p>How did they know something about him that he didn't even know about himself?</p><p> </p><p>Maybe they could smell the fragrant scent of the perfume in his petals. In the same way one cannot smell the cherry drop on his own tongue, it is always easier for others to detect the sweet odour when they have never tasted sweetness for themselves.</p><p> </p><p>They could see the difference in Taemin because it wasn't within them. To Taemin, it blossomed outwards into every vein, into every cell, into his roots. Him and his idiosyncrasies were irrevocably linked. He couldn't see them because he was them. </p><p> </p><p>He could see them in the sacristy. </p><p> </p><p>He felt seen in the sacristy. The air was brimming with the incorporeal presence of the One who knew everything. Omniscient as He was, He saw Taemin's petals because He created them. He formed the beauty of Taemin's flower in the image that was His own. </p><p> </p><p>The Lord is infallible in His very nature. Thus, Taemin was without flaw, too. </p><p> </p><p>In the sacristy he felt the colours inside of him spreading outwards, interlinking with the presence of the Love and the Light. </p><p> </p><p>It was outside of the sacristy, under the watchful eye of those who took the name of the Lord in vain while vowing their devotion to him, that his colours became muted.</p><p> </p><p>He became a nail. </p><p> </p><p>Pounding. Pushing.  Downwards. Levelling. He was levelling the mountains to meet the plains in his mind. The plains his mother harvested. He stood in line with everyone else so as to keep himself safe. </p><p> </p><p>It was in the school grounds where they beat him down. </p><p> </p><p>No one likes a pansy. No one can bear to see another person outshining them with their beauty. No one can bear to see another basking in the sun while they wait around in the cold. In a coldness of their own creation.</p><p> </p><p>No one can bear to see the eagle fly while they are trapped inside their cage. </p><p> </p><p>With every blow from their hammering fists, red sprung amongst the purple, the yellow, the orange. </p><p> </p><p>Red burst alive inside of him.</p><p> </p><p>Even pansies deflower in the harshest of winters but with love and tender care, they return once again. Taemin had a fire raging inside of him because he knew he was not like the boys who battered him til he bruised. </p><p> </p><p>He was a pansy. </p><p> </p><p>It takes a smart individual to realise that flowers need to be torn out from the soil by the roots to snuff the life out of them.</p><p> </p><p>No smart person ever willingly settled for darkness, for average, for being a nail when the light was above them. </p><p> </p><p>The Light doesn't account for those who allow themselves to be reduced to judgement and to scorn or to beating and bruising a flower. </p><p> </p><p>It is the Light that allows a withering flower to grow. </p><p> </p><p>Taemin met Jongin outside of the sacristy and he brought beauty to the dull and grey world that otherwise felt so lonely. So lonely apart from the Light in which Taemin basked.</p><p> </p><p>Jongin was a snapdragon. A snapdragon of pinks and oranges. Taemin could see Jongin's colour in ways he could never see his own.</p><p> </p><p>Jongin could see Taemin's roots.</p><p> </p><p>With love and nurture Taemin thrived once more because Pansies and Snapdragons inhabit the same earth, and earth free from metal and ore, and Jongin cultivated the soil in which Taemin grew. </p><p> </p><p>Taemin thought Jongin's lips felt like petals.</p><p> </p><p>Taemin knew He was watching because he could feel his light beaming down on him from the heavens. His light was as warm as ever and Taemin knew that he would continue to grow.</p><p> </p><p>Omniscient. He knew in the sacristy and He knew in the fields of flowers. But He wasn't a nail either. </p><p> </p><p>It was in Taemin's house where Taemin's mother caught them. </p><p> </p><p>She saw the interlocking of their petals and for the first, she saw her son for the pansy he really was.</p><p> </p><p>There is one benefit to being made of metal. Only flowers crumble when crushed within the palm on their mother's hands.</p><p> </p><p>He remembered Jongin on the road to the place where the light doesn't shine. To the place where pansies become nails.</p><p> </p><p>To Taemin's own personal Hell. His personal pit of burning sulfur where Everlasting Love goes to die. Omnibenevolence cannot exist in a place so cruel. A place devised by His own creation and yet against His will.</p><p> </p><p>Taemin lost himself in there and when he emerged, he was a mere vessel. A shell of the flower he once was. </p><p> </p><p>He was a nail. </p><p> </p><p>He was truly average for the first time. He was monotony. He was nothing. He was no one. </p><p> </p><p>He wasn't even a pansy. </p><p> </p><p>When he struck the match, he did it in the pitch black. No one was watching him. No one was there. Not even himself. Not even the Light.</p><p> </p><p>He watched the place where his mother had torn apart his petals billow into oranges, reds, blues, greens as it cast a glow over everything in its wake. </p><p> </p><p>Nails can survive the heat of flames. </p><p> </p><p>And Pansies can rise from the ashes.</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>“O my God, because you are so good, I am very sorry that I have sinned against you; and I promise that with the help of your grace, I will not sin again. Amen.”</p><p> </p><p>"Taemin-ah?" </p><p> </p><p>The smile was yet to fall from his face. Never in his life had he felt so free.</p><p> </p><p>Even though he was more confined in his life, he had never felt more alive.</p><p> </p><p>His mother watched on from behind the pane of glass, her voice crackling through the phone pressed against Taemin's ear but he couldn't see her.</p><p> </p><p>He couldn't hear her.</p><p> </p><p>"I killed him." </p><p> </p><p>"Killed WHO Taemin-ah?" </p><p> </p><p>"Me." </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Get it? </p><p>Clues: confession, religion, gay, conversion therapy, arson, prison, identity crisis</p><p>I sort of feel like I don't know how to explain it and part of the fun for me is that it's a bit ambiguous. </p><p>Idk man I'm bored.</p><p>Here's my twitter anyways: @yeoloutof10</p></blockquote></div></div>
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